Recovery of Stamped Imprints (IMAGE)

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

Recovery of Stamped Imprints

Caption

For an experiment to recover serial numbers that have been destroyed, NIST researchers hand-stamped X imprints into stainless steel (first image) to simulate a firearm serial number. Then they polished away the imprints (second image, scale bar in millimeters). Researchers recovered the imprints (third image) by combining pattern quality maps, calculated by software, which reveal crystal damage and deformation in the steel.

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White/NIST

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